Honduran Hooky - Part 9, Spooky Channel

I had started writing Honduran Hooky in June, and stopped in September because Sean was running for Mayor of our small town. But, now at the request of Dennis, who was born on Roatan, I will complete this tale. You can find the first 8 posts here.

I walked down to the beach with Katy, my snorkel buddy. We had been told that the current in Spooky Channel would sweep us toward the inlet which was towards the East, so we began off the beach that was westward of the dock. We donned our fins and walked awkwardly backwards until the water was deep enough to swim in. This was the first time I had worn my full body swim suit. It was black and very cool. Then the underwater world of wonder opened to me. I kept hoping that I would see an eagle ray, or maybe some other rarity. But there was so much to see all around me I was captivated as always when I snorkeled. Just looking at the fish and coral was plenty to keep me occupied.

We had barely gotten out of the shallow water when Katy stood up and shouted for my attention. I picked my head up out of the water and she was gesturing wildly for me to look at something. So I did. I swam towards where she was pointing, and holy shit! It was a small eagle ray! It was flying shyly through the water to get away from us, but I swam at great speed to keep up with it as long as I could and had a great, if fleeting view. I’ll never forget it.

We next swam out following the contours of the channel, or so we thought. When we brought our heads up, we couldn’t believe where we were. We were in the middle of the Spooky Channel. We had been sucked in unbeknownst to us and in spite of our plans not to be. It happened pretty quickly. Now we had to swim out. But that was pretty easy, as the current was not that bad. We swam easily back to the dive dock. Many other snorkelers were there and had had a great time too. Of course we told them about seeing our eagle ray. To our chagrin, others had seen it too.

Then it was time for our first dinner at the resort. It was wonderful to be together with our whole dive group, since I knew all of them and we all got along so well. It was a big party full of jokes and boasts and that kind of thing. The female bar tender was a real character and kept us laughing. She had a scarlett macaw that was trained to do things. It was very amusing. The resort also had another large Amazon parrot that was green as well as a dog and several stray cats and chickens. The food was a fresh fish of some sort and the coffee was terrific. The staff was very friendly and warm. We shared stories of what we had seen that day in the water. The dive staff told us that sometimes there were whale sharks seen off Roatan. I was thrilled. It has always been a personal goal of mine to see a whale shark. We were all so tired that when it came time for bed, we were more than ready.

This is what snorkeling is like. Below is a video of a snorkel that I would have loved to do.